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Agreed. Leaving work unfinished, knowing what to do next, is for me the best way to be unable to fall asleep at night. That code just has to get out.

I have no problem stopping something when I feel stuck though.

Write it out then, quickly, before you stop. On paper, that is, with a pen/pencil. Write in pseudo-code if it helps get it on paper faster. Stick that to your monitor or under your keyboard, it'll be there the next morning. If you got it right, typing it in will be easy. If, the next day, you see things differently, you will be past the first draft.

After many years of learning this lesson over and over again, that much my subconscious works on problems, I've finally learned to trust myself to step away when I feel like I'm grinding.

Yep. I am my most valuable asleep. Day-me just does data entry on the solutions to hard problems night-me figures out.

Passive processing is real. Very often it’s not others that need convincing, it’s yourself.